


Halloween for a Hamilton

by readingpower



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-27 20:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8416057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readingpower/pseuds/readingpower
Summary: “Burr!” Alexander exclaimed happily, popping up from the mountain of decorations. A flurry of florescent red and orange sequence cascaded down from his hair. “It’s the first day of Halloween!”





	1. Chapter 1

Aaron Burr was a man who knew how to fit expectations: he knew when he was socially obligated to smile, how to hide his fury or embarrassment with a well placed gesture of a hand, when to exaggerate confidence or downplay doubt. This was precisely why so few people had a problem with him, and why even fewer were truly close to him.  
  
This skill was one his roommate lacked with an almost obstinate stubbornness.  
  
Alexander Hamilton threw himself into things he considered righteous with little regard as to whether anyone agreed. He was like a flame, sometimes softly warm and other times blazing fire that left damage in its wake.  
  
When Aaron walked into their dorm, there was a split second where he was convinced exactly that had happened.  
  
Fluorescent orange slime stuck to the walls, looking like a poorly done paint job with the way it dripped down the sides in fat globs. Fake spider webs didn’t litter the corners, but only because a skeleton was already occupying the space. Instead the thread like strands covered a sign that Aaron didn’t remember buying but still proudly declared itself above where he knew the couch to be: the word BOOOO!!! glared at Aaron in a garish yellow.  
  
He flicked the light on and felt whatever hope left in him die.  
  
The walls–which that morning had been a bland beige–were now dusted with black ash. The mix of colors (black walls, yellow sign, orange goop, a container of fake blood) was so horrendous and extraneous that Aaron could feel a headache forming. Pumpkins, ghost figurines, gaudy and fake grave markers, and obviously plastic bones didn’t so much cover the coffee table as they obliterated it. The couch wasn’t any better.  
  
“Burr!” Alexander exclaimed happily, popping up from the mountain of decorations. A flurry of fluorescent red and orange sequence cascaded down from his hair. “It’s the first day of Halloween!”  
  
“… You mean October.” Aaron vaguely remembered having to cross out the date he had written for some paper earlier. Alexander, it appeared, had been a bit more conscious of the changing months.  
  
“I know what I said.”


	2. Chapter 2

Aaron’s room blissfully escaped Alexander’s complete overturn of the house, but not for a lack of trying.  
  
“No,” Aaron said simply when Alexander had kicked his roommate’s door open, arms laden with too many decorations for Aaron to count. A string of paper pumpkins trailed behind him.  
  
“It’ll help you get into the Halloween spirit!”  
  
“With what you’ve done with this house, it’d be impossible not to.”  
  
“Burr–”  
  
“No.”  
  
“There are more reasons–”  
  
“Are we even allowed to change the color of the walls?” Aaron cut in. It was a shameless diversion tactic, but Aaron had been wondering about it since he had seen the suddenly black walls.  
  
“The chalk comes off.”  
  
“So that’s a no.” Aaron wondered if he could claim ignorance if Alex was caught–not to the new color, but to the rule.  
  
“Oh come on Burr, it’s not like anyone pays attention to stuff like that.”  
  
“I’m paying for half the rent, leave my room alone. You can decorate some of the other rooms, but leave my room alone.”  
  
Grudgingly (and after an hour long discussion) Alexander had relented. It came at the cost of every other room’s decor being dictated by Alexander, but Aaron’s bedroom remained blissfully free of ghosts and skulls.  
  
When Aaron arrived home the next day and saw the ‘Hamilsquad,’ (as they had dubbed themselves) he half wondered if Alex had brought reinforcements.

Hercules did a sort of half wave, but the other three were too deep in a discussion to notice Aaron’s entrance. That worked for him–he started inching towards the hallway  
  
“Only half of us understand French,” John pointed out, huffing in a way that made Aaron think he had said this before. “We all know English. Therefore, the movie should be in English.”  
  
“Blasphemy!” Lafayette intoned. “Frontier is famous! I even looked up popular french horror movies in America! Besides, it has subtitles.”  
  
“I’m with John,” Hercules spoke up, causing Lafayette to send him a look of exaggerated betrayal. “If we’re watching a movie with blood and guts I don’t wanna have to read about it on a screen.”  
  
Aaron entered the hallway, walking slightly faster than normal.  
  
“Lafayette’s movie was officially vetoed ten minutes ago,” Alex pointed out, waving the idea away. “Which means–”  
  
“We’re watching mine.”  
  
“My dear, dear Laurens,” Alexander said sweetly, “over my dead body.”  
  
“Burr!” Hercules called, and Aaron paused, his hand inches from his room’s door knob.  
  
_So close_ , he thought.  
  
“Yes?” He replied reluctantly.  
  
“You be the deciding vote: It Follows or Scream?”  
  
Before Aaron could even think of a reply, Lafayette groaned.  
  
“It’ll take longer for Little Burr to respond than it would for us to come to a decision.”  
  
There was a flash of irritation at the nickname, but it quickly passed. Regardless of his teasing, Aaron agreed with the man–or at least his end goal. Aaron detested having to decide things without the proper context, and he had never watched either of the films before.  
  
It would be more surprising if he did. Aaron had been raised by his steadfastly religious uncle, who unironically said the only ghost allowed on his property was the Holy Ghost. Once, before Aaron realized that it was best for him to talk less and smile more, he had asked his uncle what was so inherently evil about Halloween.  
  
He had rather lost his taste for horror movies, after that.  
  
“Aaron’s not that bad,” John attempted to defend him, but his voice trailed off before he even finished the sentence. “Actually yeah, can we just flip a coin?”  
  
“Here’s a penny,” Aaron offered, digging one out of his pocket and tossing it to Hercules.  
  
“Scream,” Hercules declared after a second. Alex swore, the sound muffled by John’s sudden shout.  
  
“HA!” he exclaimed, shoving Alex playfully. “In your face.”  
  
“You say that as if a coin toss requires skill and not just luck,” Alex grumbled, but his eyes shined with playfulness. “Burr, do you wanna watch it with us?”  
  
“I have to write an essay,” he politely declined.  
  
“The one from American History?” Hercules piped up, taking the chance to toss back Aaron’s coin.  
  
“Yes, why?”  
  
“Teach sent out an email saying it was canceled.”  
  
“WHAT?” Alexander exclaimed, jerking up. “I’ve been finished that essay for a week now, I’ve gone over it twice and grammar checked–GOD DAMNIT LAFAYETTE!”  
  
The Frenchman laughed (slightly witch like, in Aaron’s opinion). When the rest of them has been distracted he had already inserted Frontier into the DVD player and French narration was playing through the speakers.  
  
“This is the THIRD time you have done this: WE STILL AREN’T WATCHING FRONTIERS!”  
  
“But it is already playing, no?” Lafayette simpered, barely holding back laughter. John threw a pillow at him, but Lafayette only snatched it out of the air and grinned wolfishly. Hercules groaned loudly.  
  
Aaron was beginning to realize why they hadn’t come to a decision earlier.


	3. Chapter 3

They ended up watching Frontiers.

How Lafayette managed it, Aaron couldn’t quite figure out. Alexander in particular had been adamantly against the idea, and didn’t cease his incessant and scathing commentary until the credits were rolling. John and Hercules weren’t any better: they strived to mistranslate the French words and quickly got into an ongoing competition to see who could annoy Lafayette more. John was surprisingly good at dirty jokes, but Hercules kept making up absurdly hilarious backstories for the villain.

(“You’re not you when you’re hungry,” he said, solemnly tossing a snickers from one hand to the other as John and Alex roared with laughter.

“They. Are. _Murderers.“_

“I don’t know man, maybe they’re just hangry.”)

The movie seemed to rely on shock factor and massive amounts of blood and brutality to scare their viewers more than actual horror. All the same, Aaron thought as the protagonist loudly shrieked, he was rather glad that Alex, John, and Hercules were talking too loud for him to actually pay attention to it, even with Lafayette continuously turning the volume up.

He was slightly less glad when the dorm’s supervisor—a tiny, shy girl with a glare that could make twenty foot giants run for their mama—knocked at their door due to noise complaints. Everyone but Aaron and Alex were kicked out, and the girl firmly told them that under no circumstances should she have to come back.

“What are you doing?” Alexander asked when Aaron went to remove the DVD—Lafayette had been forced out the door so quickly he hadn’t had a chance to collect it. “The movies not over.”

“I thought you didn’t want to watch it?” Aaron inquired, slightly incredulous.

“Burr,” Alexander said, face as serious as Aaron had ever seen, “I need to know everything about it so I can insult it properly.”

“… Okay.”

“Sit down,” Alex insisted before Aaron could politely excuse himself to his room. “I need someone to complain to.”

With a slightly uneasy feeling in his gut, Aaron did.

The movie was already nearing its climax, with the villain being revealed as a practicing Nazi and soon showing another bloody fight between the protagonist and an enemy that Aaron couldn’t recall the name of. There was the sound of sloshing blood, and Aaron flinched the slightest bit, only to pause when he realized the soft sound wasn’t being covered by obnoxious complaints.

“Alexander?” he asked, glancing over. There was an odd expression on the man’s face—shutters had been drawn and the eyes that were always brimming with exuberance, or determination, or furiosity—now they were blank. It stunned Aaron into silence, and it took a moment to realize Alex hadn’t responded.

“Alexander?” he repeated, slightly more forceful.  

Alex jerked up, back straightening. His eyes lit up, but it wasn’t the bright fire that his friends were used to—it was more of a spark of flint. But it was something.

“Life can be kinda shitty, can’t it?” he asked. Aaron waited, but it seemed that this was the one topic Alexander was quiet on.

“Are you alright?” Aaron dared after a moment.

“Fine,” he replied too quickly to be true. “I’m fine. Just—” Alexander waved his hand distractedly—“memories.”

“… Do you want to talk—” Aaron offered, trying to convince himself it was only because social expectations.

“Do you want to talk about your dead parents?” Hamilton asked dryly, then shook his head vigorously. “Sorry, that was—it was a low blow.”

“Indeed.” And it stung, half made Aaron not want to bother—but his pride reared its ugly head: if Aaron was going to be hit where it hurt, then Alex was going to dig into whatever wound Aaron had accidentally scratched.

“… Is it from before you came to America?”

Alexander nodded, short and curt.

“One more question,” Aaron said slowly, knowing he was treading the edge of Alex’s tolerance. “Is it something in particular or just, in you words, life being shitty?”

That earned him a small twitch that might have been a smile. Alex gestured, said “life,” and proved that this was the one topic he didn’t feel the need to spiel about.

Just then there was a loud, drawn out scream from the television and Aaron jerked. Alex did not, though he did glance between the television and Burr slowly, a smirk growing on his face.

“Don’t.”

“You’re—”

“Alexander!”

“You’re scared,” Alex burst out, bending over as a roar of laughter fell over him. “Of this stupid movie that doesn’t even have a cohesive plotline!”

“My uncle didn’t allow horror films in his house,” Aaron said defensively, not avowing or disavowing the claims. Alexander laughed even harder at the news, a deep sort of guffaw that Aaron found endearing when he should have found it irritating.

“Oh god, this is hilarious!” Alexander exclaimed, laughing so hard Aaron was beginning to wonder if he was trying to force the conversation away from his childhood.

“Glad you find it so amusing,” Aaron replied dryly, and Alexander threw his arm over Aaron’s shoulders, still chuckling.

“Aw, don’t be offended, Burr. Here, I’ll protect you from the terribly written movie. We can even cuddle.”

Alexander was grinning, somehow leaning even closer to Aaron, closer and closer until Aaron could count his eyelashes. Alexander’s eyes were shinning, teasing and mischievous and solely focused on Aaron to the point where Aaron felt star-struck, just a bit. His words were teasing but his eyes were kind—the blankness from earlier vanished as if it had never been.

“Fine,” Aaron said, before he could think better of it. That happened a lot near Alex, he’s noticed.

Alex grin faltered slightly, shock evident in his features (Aaron wasn’t sure who was more astounded between the two of them) but then a slow grin lit up his face and Aaron didn’t regret it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note, I've never watched Frontiers.


End file.
